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Privacy Policy

Revised: 4/03/2023

Protecting your privacy is important to us. We’re providing this Privacy Policy to explain our practices regarding the collection, use, processing, and disclosure of information that we receive when you access or use our website (“Site”) or Services. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any third-party websites, services, or applications, even if they are accessible through our Services.  Also, please note that, unless we define a term in this Privacy Policy, all capitalized words used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Use.

Revisions to this privacy policy

Any information that we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time that personal information is collected. In this Privacy Policy, all personal data relating to a user, all information received about a user (“Contact Information” as defined below), and all information provided by the user is collectively referred to as “User Information”. We may, however, modify and revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we’ll notify you of those changes by posting them or by sending you an email or other notification, and we’ll indicate when those changes will become effective.

Information collected and purposes of collection

We collect and use personal and corporate information in the specific ways listed below:

User Accounts

If you are a user of the Services and have received log-in instructions, you may use those instructions to log in. Upon log-in, you may be asked to register, and following the prompts, supply your name, school name, email address, and phone number (“Contact Information”), as well as your preferred password for access to the Site. This Contact Information is used to carry out actions you request through the Site, such as requests for support, tracking transactions that are performed through the site, to communicate with you about these actions, and to bill the responsible party for the Services and collect payment for our Services. User Information will be shared with any other users designated as administrators for your corporate account, where applicable. Where permitted by Privacy Laws, we may also use your email address to send you promotional messages, surveys, product updates, and other communications, unless you opt-out of such emails by either following the opt-out instructions in the particular email or sending an email to us as specified in the “Questions” section below.

Payment Processing

Certain Services require you to provide certain information (e.g., credit card information and billing, and e-mail addresses) solely to initiate payment processing. We do not retain or store your credit card information. All payment processing is done by a designated third-party payment processor. The information you provide to us to process payments will be shared with our payment processor as necessary to carry out the transaction. Any sharing of your personal information with such processors will be made in accordance with Privacy Laws such that the processor will use your information solely to process your payment with us, on a confidential basis, and will not retain your personal information after conclusion of the transaction.

IP Address

In connection with registration on the Site, we collect other information, such as your IP address, which may be considered personal information in some jurisdictions. This information is used for purposes of validation, verification of a user account, tracking of transactions that you perform through the Site, security, and other purposes. Please see below under “Information Collected Using Cookies and other Web Technologies” for further descriptions of information collected automatically through our Site.

Information Requests and Feedback

The Site contains various user interfaces to allow visitors to the Site to request more information about our products and services, to use the functionalities of the Site, or to provide us feedback about them. Contact Information is requested in each case, along with information about your computer environment and/or industry, and details of your request or reported feedback. This information is used in order to allow us to respond to your requests, to assure that our software and services work correctly with your computer environment, to better understand our users’ needs or your specific issue, to communicate with you about your requests and feedback, and to execute on the actions that you request via the various functions on the Site. Where permitted by Privacy Laws, we may also use your email address to send you promotional messages, surveys, product updates, and other communications, unless you opt-out of such emails.

Click-thru URLs in Email Communications

Submission of your email address on the Site may result in your being added to our mailing list for purposes of product updates, promotional and marketing messages, and other communications, until such time as you opt-out. In some of our email messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to certain websites administered by or on behalf of Vocareum. Vocareum may track click-through data to assist in determining interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of these communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click on the text or graphic links in the email messages. See below under “Use of Your Email and Your Choices” to understand how you may control the use of your Contact Information.

General Uses

In addition to the specific uses described above, we may also make use of User Information for the following purposes:

Conduct our business with our worldwide affiliates and subsidiaries, consultants, and service providers;

  • Improve the Site and our products and services;
  • Deliver and support our services and products;
  • Carry out transactions you have requested;
  • Perform auditing, data analysis, and research;
  • Enforce our Terms of Use as found on our Site, our Privacy Policy, and other agreements with you;
  • Prevent illegal activity, protect or enforce our rights, property, or customers, and contact appropriate authorities in accordance with Privacy Laws;
  • Comply with applicable law (including Privacy Laws), and with subpoenas or other mandatory legal processes; and
  • Engage with prospective employees

Please note, we will keep User Information for as long as necessary for us to provide you Services. We will also keep User Information as necessary for backup, archiving, audit, preventing fraud, resolving disputes, and troubleshooting problems.

Information

If you receive an invitation to join a coding course on the Services, your teacher will have already provided us with your email address and possibly (although we don’t require it) your student identification number. If you accept the invitation and access your Account, we will receive certain information from you (such as assignments you submit via the Services) and about you (such as grades you receive via the Services).

Information collected using cookies and other web technologies

Like many website owners, we use automated data collection tools such as Cookies and Web Beacons to collect certain information. “Cookies” are small files that are placed on your hard drive when you access our Services. We may use Cookies to identify that you’ve logged in to the Services and to tell us how and when you interact with our Services. Although most browsers automatically accept Cookies, you can change your browser options to stop automatically accepting Cookies or to prompt you before accepting Cookies. Please note, however, that if you don’t accept Cookies, you may not be able to access all portions or features of the Services.

Information related to use of the services

Our servers automatically record certain information about how a person uses our Services (we refer to this information as “Log Data”), including both Account holders and non-Account holders (either, a “User”). Log Data may include information such as a User’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, operating system, the web page that a User was visiting before accessing our Services, the pages or features of our Services to which a User browsed and the time spent on those pages or features, search terms, the links on our Services that a User clicked on and other statistics. We use this information to administer the Services and we analyze (and may engage third parties to analyze) this information to improve and enhance the Services by expanding their features and functionality and tailoring them to our Users’ needs and preferences. We may use a person’s IP address to fight spam, malware, and identity theft. We also use the IP Address to generate aggregate, non-identifying information about how our Services are used.

De-identified information

We may use the information we obtain via the Services (as described above) to create de-identified information (in other words, information that cannot be used to identify an individual). Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit our ability to generate and use de-identified information, including aggregated de-identified information.

What information do we share with third parties?

We will not share any User Information that we have collected from you except as described below:

User Information Shared with Your Teacher, Parent or Legal Guardian

If you are a student, all User Information may be shared with your teacher or educational institution via the functionality of the Services or upon request. For example, all assignments that you submit will be available to your teacher. We may also share with your teacher information which can be used to verify your identity in an effort to combat plagiarism. For example, we may share with your teacher the IP address through which you accessed the Services.
If you are a student and are under 18, your User Information may be shared with your parent or legal guardian upon request. See “Modifying Information” below.

Information shared with our services providers

We may engage third-party service providers to work with us to administer and provide the Services. These third-party services providers have access to your User Information only for the purpose of performing services on our behalf.

Information shared with third parties

We may share aggregated information and non-identifying information with third parties for industry research and analysis, demographic profiling, and other similar purposes.

Information disclosed in connection with business transactions

Information that we collect from our users, including User Information, is considered to be a business asset because we use this information to provide the Services. As a result, if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy or if we are acquired as a result of a transaction such as a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your User Information may be disclosed or transferred to the third-party acquirer in connection with the transaction. We will not otherwise sell your User Information.

Information disclosed for our protection and the protection of others

We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials or private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose any information about you to the government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate: (i) to respond to claims, legal process (including subpoenas); (ii) to protect our property, rights and safety and the property, rights, and safety of a third party or the public in general; and (iii) to stop any activity that we consider the illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity.

What we don’t do with your user information

We will not use any User Information that we have collected from you to engage in targeted advertising.

Responding to do not track signals

Our Site does not have the capability to respond to “Do Not Track” signals received from various web browsers.

The security of your information

We take reasonable measures to protect all User Information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. When you enter sensitive information on our forms, we encrypt this data using SSL or other technologies. Please be aware, however, that no method of transmitting information over the Internet or storing information is completely secure. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of any information.
In the event of any unauthorized disclosure of User Information, we will take steps to notify the affected user and will co-operate in taking steps to notify the affected user (and their parent or guardian if the user is under 18).

EEA data rights

If you are from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) Vocareum wants to ensure you are aware of your rights with respect to User Information, many of which are further described in other sections of this Privacy Policy.  They are as follows:

Right of Access – You have the right to request a copy of your User Information.

Right of Correction – You have the right to request the correction of any inaccurate User Information or to ensure such User Information is complete.

Right to Delete – You have the right to request the deletion of User Information.

Right to Object to Processing – You have the right to either; (i) object to the processing of User Information under certain circumstances or (ii) restrict the processing of User Information under certain circumstances.

Right of Portability – You have the right to request that we transfer your User Information to another organization under certain circumstances.

If you make a request for one or more of the above we have one month to respond to you. Please contact us as outlined in the section entitled “Questions” below.

California (And Other States)

The laws of California, Virginia, Colorado and Connecticut grant some or all of the following rights to consumers who reside in those states:

The right to request information about personal information that we have collected about that customer in the 12 months preceding the customer’s request (including the categories of information collected, the source of that information, the business purpose of that collection, the categories of third parties with whom that information is shared, and the specific pieces of personal information collected about that particular customer);

The right to receive requested information in a readily-usable format if provided electronically;

The right to request that we delete any personal information about the consumer that we have collected (although we may be entitled to retain some information for certain purposes);

The right to opt-out of “sales” of personal information to third parties, the sharing of personal information with third parties for targeted advertising purposes, and/or the processing of personal information for targeted advertising purposes;

The right to update or correct any personal information which is out of date or incorrect; and

The right to be free from discrimination based on your exercise of your privacy rights.

We cannot respond to your request to access or delete information unless we are able to both verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you and/or your household. If you have an account, we will verify your identity by having you log in to your account. If you do not have an account, we will attempt to verify your request by asking you to provide identifying information that we will match to information in our files. We will only use information you provide in your request for the purpose of verifying your identity or authority to make the request. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. Your agent will need to provide a Power of Attorney authorizing the agent to act on your behalf, or will need to complete the same verification procedures that would be required for a request submitted by you directly, and provide information that allows us to verify your authorization.

You can exercise your rights (or ask questions regarding such rights) by contacting us as outlined in the section entitled “Questions” below.

If you choose to exercise your privacy rights, you have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment or a lesser degree of service from Vocareum.

Links to other sites

Our Services may contain links to other websites and services. Any information that you provide on or to a third-party website or service is provided directly to the owner of the website or service and is subject to that party’s privacy policy. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to such websites or services and we’re not responsible for the content, privacy or security practices and policies of those websites or services. To protect your information we recommend that you carefully review the privacy policies of other websites and services that you access.

Modifying or deleting your information

If you want us to delete your User Information and your Account, please contact us at accounts@vocareum.com with your request. We’ll take steps to delete your information as soon as is practicable, but some information may remain in archived/backup copies for our records or as otherwise required by law.

If you are a student, please be aware that we may be obligated to comply with requests from your teacher, educational institution, or school district to delete the User Information associated with your Account or certain other User Information.  This may happen where you withdraw from a course, or a course itself is withdrawn or after a course has completed.  If we receive a request to delete the User Information associated with your Account or your User Information while a course is ongoing, we will let you know by email.

If you are a parent or legal guardian of a student user who is under the age of 18, you may wish to request to review your child’s User Information.  Because we hold limited information about our student users, however, we will not be able to verify who a particular student is or what your relationship to them is.  Therefore, all such requests to review or modify User Information must be submitted to your child’s teacher and we will take steps to comply with requests we receive from the teacher.

International Transfer

Your User Information may be transferred to, and maintained on, computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction.  User Information regarding individuals who reside in a member state of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland is controlled and processed by Vocareum or third parties on its behalf. Vocareum uses approved Model Contractual Clauses for the international transfer of User Information collected in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.

Our policy toward children

Our Services are not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect any information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal data of a child under 13 we will take steps to delete such information from our files as soon as possible.

Questions

Please contact us at info@vocareum.com if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy.

 

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